Manafort May Have Rented His Way Into a Prison Cell

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Poor Paul Manafort. To hear his lawyers tell it today, he’s the real victim here. They say the financial crime spree the government’s accused him of—spanning millions of dollars, several years, and multiple offenses—is all because he was just a busy guy who put too much trust not just in his old employee, Rick Gates, but his former son-in-law Jeff Yohai.

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Mortgages and lies: Thursday’s testimony focused on a host of lies the government accused Manafort of telling to banks in order to get them to give him bigger loans with cheaper interest rates—hiding mortgages, hiding debt, and inflating income. One of the alleged lies that drew a lot of testimony was whether the home he owned at 29 Howard Street in New York was a rental property or a second home. Manafort told the bank it was a second home; it wasn’t.